Two years ago this week, five members the Fogel family of the West Bank village of Itamar were murdered — stabbed and their throats slit by Muslims waging jihad fi sabil Allah: “war for the sake of Allah.”

…14-year-old Tamar, 10-year-old Roi and four-year-old Yishai and have been taken in by Rabbi Yehuda and Tali Ben-Yishai, the parents of Ruth Fogel. In an interview published Friday in Israel Hayom, Rabbi Ben-Yishai said of his daughter, son-in-law and three slain grandchildren, “They’re always with us.”

“What happened was so inhuman that we have gained superhuman strength,” grandmother Tali said. “We know these children will be great people. They will be all right. They will not be damaged. They’re not in trauma anymore. Some children are afraid of what happens around them, but they’re not like that. They’re not the sort who don’t want to go to school or don’t want to get out of bed and spend the day crying.”

For that, we can be glad.

Sadly, the murderers are also alive, serving their sentences in an Israeli jail. It’s a shame and a denial of justice for there to have been no death penalty for this case.

That’s the takeaway regarding this fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi in response to a questioner asking whether a suicide bomber was, well, committing suicide:

Q: “Now, about [the] targeting [of] civilians in the Zionist state. Some say that according to the teaching[s] of [Ahl Al-Bayt, i.e. the Prophet Muhammad’s household] and the Koran, it is haram to target civilians in any case. They also say that Israelis are civilians like any other people, while others believe they are settlers and usurpers [rather than] civilians.

“Are the operations [carried out] by Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad against [Israeli] ‘civilians’ haram? Why or why not? How about the Israeli children killed in such attacks? If it is not haram, what is the answer to those who quote the Hadith [which forbids targeting] non-combatants.”

A: “Muslims should not attack those civilians of the occupied territories who have announced their opposition to their government’s vicious crimes, except [in] situations in which they are used as human shields and [when] fighting the aggressors depends on attacking those [same] civilians.”

Note that the learned Shiite scholar, though specifically asked about killing children, never says “don’t do it.” Not a word of forbiddance. You shouldn’t target those who denounced their own government, but if they’re being used as human shields… Well, hey. Stuff happens, you know?

I guess it was the fault of the Fogel children that they didn’t publicly oppose Israeli policy.

Note also that the questioner asked about the religious propriety of suicide bombing. You may be surprised to know that this is a controversial issue in Islam, because suicide is a sin. Islamic scholars have argued with al Qaeda leaders about this, and they in turn have had to engage in stretched-to-the-breaking-point arguments to say it isn’t technically suicide. (Read all about it.) Mesbah-Yazdi apparently comes down on the al Qaeda side of the argument, telling the questioner that it is not only permitted, but it is a religious obligation on all Muslims to conduct “martyrdom operations.”

Funny, but the learned Ayatollah himself has yet to strap on a bomb belt and blast his way to glory as a martyr. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until he gets around to it.

Just as soon as the right Jewish child comes along.

RELATED: In case you find yourself wondering if Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi is some kind of …er… fanatic, you’re right. How much of a fanatic, you ask? How about, “so bad that even Ayatollah Khomeini banned his movement?” Mesbah-Yazdi is a spiritual adviser to President Gilligan Ahmadinejad; he’s appeared in this blog before.

Most of the Fogel family was slaughtered a little over a month ago by Muslims waging jihad fi sabil Allah — “war for the sake of Allah.” Each person in the photo above was killed their home as the family prepared to go to bed: Udi (36), his wife Ruth (35), their children Yoav (11, bottom center), Elad (4, bottom left), and and Hadas (3 months). Ruth and Udi were surprised, fought back, but were killed in their bedroom. Hadas —the infant!— had his throat slit so deep he was almost decapitated. Three children survived: one, a toddler, was found next to his parents’ corpses, trying to make them “wake up.”

Now, weeks later, there’s been a break in the case: Israeli authorities tracked down and arrested the killers, two teenaged members of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

Two Palestinian youths from the village of Awarta were arrested in recent days for the brutal slaying of five members of the Fogel family in their Itamar home last month, the IDF and Shin Bet said on Sunday following the lifting of a media ban on the investigation.

The suspects have been named as Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, an 18-year-old high school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19, both from the West Bank village of Awarta, located 2 kilometers south of the settlement of Itamar.

The suspects have confessed to the stabbings and re-enacted the murders, security forces said on Sunday. According to Army Radio, they did not express remorse for their crimes.

Both men are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) terror group and received significant assistance from family members and friends after the attack, security forces added.

The article also points out that these two went back to kill the baby, after they heard it start crying.

Nothing will ever return the Fogels to life, nor undo the horror the surviving children must live with for the rest of their lives. At least they’ll receive some small measure of justice, but it can never be enough.

PS: It’s a damned shame Israel abolished the death penalty, for if anyone ever deserved to hang by the neck and have their corpses left for the vultures, it’s Hakim and Amjad Awad. But, you know what? The worst they’ll likely get is life, and, given the sick, twisted nature of Palestinian society, they’ll be celebrated as heroes.

Some of the most profound lessons are taught through irony, that striking contrast between what we would expect to happen in a sequence of events and what really does happen. Last week, the Fogel family was nearly wiped out, parents and children —an infant!— slaughtered as they laid down for the evening by Muslim jihadists of the Palestinian Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

Then, yesterday, a Palestinian woman rushes to the gates of the village where the Fogels’ relatives were sitting shiva and begged for help to save her baby. Did the Israelis, still in mourning for the dead and still angry over the atrocity, do the predictable thing and turn her away?

Just as IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz arrived in Neve Tzuf to offer his condolences, a Palestinian cab raced towards the community’s entrance. In it, soldiers and paramedics discovered a Palestinian woman in her 20s in advanced stages of labor and facing a life-threatening situation: The umbilical cord was wrapped around the young baby girl’s neck, endangering both her and her mother.

The quick action of settler paramedics and IDF troops deployed in the area saved the mother’s and baby’s life, prompting great excitement and emotions at the site where residents are still mourning the brutal death of five local family members.

And so a people whose culture values life —“l’chaim!” “To life!”— rush to save the life of a mother and child, even though they come from their enemies and even though they themselves are still reeling from what happened.

Tell me again these are civilized followers of a Religion of Peace. I dare you:

Israel hunted for the perpetrators of a grisly murder of a family of five in a remote West Bank settlement Saturday, appealing for help from the Palestinian Authority, which sent security forces to join the manhunt.

The knife attack, which killed two young children, a baby and their parents as they slept, was the deadliest in years. It comes at a delicate moment, with pressure building on Israel to launch a new peace initiative and the Palestinians pushing for world recognition of an independent state – with or without a peace deal.

Israeli forces set up checkpoints throughout the area surrounding the Itamar settlement in the northern West Bank and were still sweeping the region late into Saturday. Military officials said they had made some arrests, but wouldn’t provide details.

Gaza residents from the southern city of Rafah hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar where five family members were murdered in their sleep, including three children.

Residents handed out candy and sweets, one resident saying the joy “is a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank.”

The article then quotes the PA prime minister condemning the attack, but he draws the usual vapid moral equivalence between jihadist terrorists (which his government sponsors) and Israeli efforts to defend their own people.

Tell me, Mr. Prime Minister, when was the last time an Israeli solider knifed a month-old infant? And how many Israelis handed out candy and praised God afterward? How is there any equivalence at all between Israel and the sick and depraved society you govern?